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New to Tracfone

I just got a Tracfone for my wife who only uses it for checking in from time to time. I am wondering if this is normal...

I received a Motorola w370 directly from Tracfone. I activated from the website. My phone would not activate although the website showed it as activated. Another strange thing was the website skipped the zipcode number search and assigned me a number in another part of the country. The number thing does not bother me since all of our existing services have unlimited long distance. I contacted tech support and after one hour they were able to activate the phone with a small issue. I proceeded to purchase 60 minutes from the website and I received an error message upon loading to the phone throught the website. I am glad I purchased through the website since the website provides evidence that my minutes were not loaded to the phone. The reason why is that my phone activated with a service end date of 1/1/2001 (the website says 11/4/2075)!?!. After 2 more hours of tech support over 3 days, they managed to add 409 units and get the service end date to be 11/23/2008, but the phone does work. They told me another tech support guy/gal would contact me within 48 hours to fix the service end date and therefore add the minutes I purchased. Weird issue. But at least they gave me 409 units for my time spent on service calls. Anyone else experiencing a similar issue? I have yet to hear from a service tech after 36 hours. So we will see.

Is this a refurbished phone? Usually they are just fine (I have a couple), but sometimes there is an issue. I know it's hard to wait, but I suggest calling the Miami office 1-800-876-5753 during regular business hours on Monday.

Is this a refurbished phone? Usually they are just fine (I have a couple), but sometimes there is an issue. I know it's hard to wait, but I suggest calling the Miami office 1-800-876-5753 during regular business hours on Monday.

Thanks for the reply Lisme. Yes this is a refurbished Motorola w370. The phone is just fine. In fact, it does not appear used. The Tracfone service team at least got some minutes added to it so the phone now receives and makes calls. The managed to change the service end date from 1/1/2001 to 11/23/2008, but until they can change the date forward from today, the system will not allow the unit adds from cards or the website. They got some units added by giving me some codes to enter into the phone. I think it's a system glitch from when I activated via the website. When I clicked the activation button on the website, the system prompted me to enter my serial number then jumped to "activated" state without asking for my zip code. The system assigned me a San Antonio Texas area code and I live in Michigan. Weird issue that the average customer service representatives cannot figure out. At least the phone works for now. But I would like to reliably add minutes. The website is the safest option since the card purchase and upload attempt is logged as evidence. I am sure we will work it out. Thanks for another contact number.

Thanks for the reply Lisme. Yes this is a refurbished Motorola w370. The phone is just fine. In fact, it does not appear used. The Tracfone service team at least got some minutes added to it so the phone now receives and makes calls. The managed to change the service end date from 1/1/2001 to 11/23/2008, but until they can change the date forward from today, the system will not allow the unit adds from cards or the website. They got some units added by giving me some codes to enter into the phone. I think it's a system glitch from when I activated via the website. When I clicked the activation button on the website, the system prompted me to enter my serial number then jumped to "activated" state without asking for my zip code. The system assigned me a San Antonio Texas area code and I live in Michigan. Weird issue that the average customer service representatives cannot figure out. At least the phone works for now. But I would like to reliably add minutes. The website is the safest option since the card purchase and upload attempt is logged as evidence. I am sure we will work it out. Thanks for another contact number.

R Nav

It seems, to me, like you might have activated using a link from another web site, instead of going DIRECTLY to the Tracfone web site to activate. That bad link already had the San Antonio zip information inserted (BAD DEAL THERE).

It seems, to me, like you might have activated using a link from another web site, instead of going DIRECTLY to the Tracfone web site to activate. That bad link already had the San Antonio zip information inserted (BAD DEAL THERE).

Am I right?

I attempted activation via the www.tracfone.com site. The problem was that I added the phone to my account prior to activating it. The phone auto-activated while adding it to my account (and auto assigned the Texas phone number along with a 1/1/2001 Service End Date) and would not let me activate it the normal way nor add minutes after that. This is a glitch with the tracfone website. Stupid me for not following the instructions to the letter. I should have activated the phone and then added it to my account. I successfully contacted the Miami office and they seem confident they can resolve the matter along with assign me a local number. We will see. I ended up buying another Tracfone phone at Radio Shack and they activated it within minutes with a local number. I will use the "Radio Shack" phone for my wife and the "troubled phone" will be handed out to my kids for emergency purposes after this issue is straightened out.

The problem was that I added the phone to my account prior to activating it. The phone auto-activated while adding it to my account (and auto assigned the Texas phone number along with a 1/1/2001 Service End Date) and would not let me activate it the normal way nor add minutes after that. This is a glitch with the tracfone website. Stupid me for not following the instructions to the letter. I should have activated the phone and then added it to my account.

hmmmm.....strange.....I activate several fones a week, sometimes several a day and I will sometimes activate after adding the fones to an account and sometimes not. Actually over the last 2 weeks I have started adding all the fones to an account before I activate them. Not a single one has "auto-activated" with an "auto-assigned" zip code. There is no reoccurring glitch that caused that to happen to your fone. Possibly a onetime glitch. But for sure not a full-time or even part-time glitch.

There is only one way that can happen consistently, but it has nothing to do with the fone being in an account or not. It has to do with something you do before you get to the activation page. But after reviewing your original post I safely assume you didn't do what it takes for that to happen. But I will not go any further into that here.

Just to be clear here.........I am not doubting that what you say happened......I am simply saying that adding a fone to an online account before activation will not cause this to happen.

Tracnet,
Thanks for the reply. I guess this rules out this scenario. Being new to Tracfone, your response improves my impression of the reliability of the Tracfone website. Maybe its just a glitch that happened. Or maybe someone miss-typed their Serial # when activating their phone in Texas? Who knows? All I can tell you is the phone was showing "activated" when I added it to my account and would not activate from there. Several Customer Service reps have verified the issue and seemed to handle it as if it were a "common" issue (although none prior to Miami seemed to have the power to resolve it). And by "common" I do not mean it happens often... just that of the issues they field, this is may be "mid-Pareto". The Miami Office representative gave me confidence that the issue will be resolved. I am in no hurry now since I purchased and activated another phone without a problem for my wife. The "issue" phone will be handed out to the kids on occasion. Thanks again Tracnet for taking the time to reply.

R Nav

Originally Posted by tracnet

hmmmm.....strange.....I activate several fones a week, sometimes several a day and I will sometimes activate after adding the fones to an account and sometimes not. Actually over the last 2 weeks I have started adding all the fones to an account before I activate them. Not a single one has "auto-activated" with an "auto-assigned" zip code. There is no reoccurring glitch that caused that to happen to your fone. Possibly a onetime glitch. But for sure not a full-time or even part-time glitch.

There is only one way that can happen consistently, but it has nothing to do with the fone being in an account or not. It has to do with something you do before you get to the activation page. But after reviewing your original post I safely assume you didn't do what it takes for that to happen. But I will not go any further into that here.

Just to be clear here.........I am not doubting that what you say happened......I am simply saying that adding a fone to an online account before activation will not cause this to happen.

Or maybe someone miss-typed their Serial # when activating their phone in Texas? Who knows? All I can tell you is the phone was showing "activated" when I added it to my account and would not activate from there.

Ok..........In your first post I didn't catch the part that the fone showed as active as soon as you added it to the account.

Someone for some reason activated that fone before you did. The reason your fone showed a service end date of 1/1/2001 is because the ACTUAL fone did not receive any of the original programming codes. I'm curious to know what error messages the website was giving you. Of course that makes no difference at this point.

BUT:
You should have come here to this forum before you called trac cs. If the website was wanting to know the parameter 0 on the fone you would have more than likely gotten away with adding the airtime and keeping the 2075 service end date!

Heh Heh! The problem is that the website shows 2075, but the phone shows 11/23/2008 for the end date after CS had me enter some codes into the phone. The CS must have miscalculated the code because whatever they had me enter increased the service end date to 11/23/2008 from 1/1/2001. Another code gave me 409 minutes on the phone. Hopefully I will at least be able to keep the 409 minutes once this is resolved. I didn't even think about the probability that someone accidently activated my phone until I was responding in this thread. I am now convinced that is what happened. It is the only root cause that makes sense assuming the system did not mysteriously glitch. I will post the outcome in a day or so. Thanks Tracnet for your insight.

R Nav

Originally Posted by tracnet

Ok..........In your first post I didn't catch the part that the fone showed as active as soon as you added it to the account.

Someone for some reason activated that fone before you did. The reason your fone showed a service end date of 1/1/2001 is because the ACTUAL fone did not receive any of the original programming codes. I'm curious to know what error messages the website was giving you. Of course that makes no difference at this point.

BUT:
You should have come here to this forum before you called trac cs. If the website was wanting to know the parameter 0 on the fone you would have more than likely gotten away with adding the airtime and keeping the 2075 service end date!

I want to thank Lisme and Tracnet for the help. The phone number to the Miami office was a great help. The issue was as we finally concluded... someone accidently activated my phone (entered the wrong serial when activating) before I received it. Tracfone sent me a new sim card to activate which gave me a local number. Tracfone also gave me 450 extra minutes and extended my Service End Date to 1/31/2010 for my troubles! It pays to be cordial and patient with the service representatives. Tracfone came through in the end after two weeks of phone tag. I am a highly satisfied customer. Thank you Lisme, Tracnet, and Tracfone!